Thursday, February 13, 2014

Absent gas tanks inspire poem

to my left was elmhurst park.
this is somewhat of a controversial
new park in the city known for
its 2.3 million dollar bathrooms.
one of those stories that shows up
in a tiny square in the lower right
corner of the daily news
one tuesday in july.
it seems that the architects
hired by the city had
run way over budget.
their goal was in some sense
to honor the remnants
of two bygone structures known
popularly as the 'elmhurst gas tanks'
with an homage of sorts.
the tanks, legend says, were
used in traffic reports to explain
the relational status of logjams
on the Long Island Expressway
to a car-commuting audience.
backup at the elmhurst gas tanks
they were dismantled
in the summer of 1996.
and as it happens in perverse
places like the east coast
they managed to get transformed
into objects of veneration among
those who soldiered past them
for many years
once the word was out
that they had been doomed.
it was a part of my childhood.
the area where they stood
got sold to the city
a few years later.
the local pols managed
through some masterstroke
of grace borne of incompetency
to turn it into a park
instead of a dunkin donuts.
they plowed over the brownfield.
planted sod and swing sets.
made the summer sprinkler
mushrooms for the nearby kids.
i mean it's not like frederick law
olmsted got his hands on the thing
it's just this ugly little park
in an ugly little part of town
but it was a victory of sorts
for working class people.
a little oasis of green
plopped upon centuries
of chemicals and ash.

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